Forget the North Pole—This Is the Real End of the Earth

Explorers and armchair explorers alike have long been fascinated by "poles of inaccessibility." These are the places on the Earth's surface that are equally far from anything, the literal middle of nowhere. On land, they're the points on each continent farthest from any ocean. In the oceans, they're the places that are as far as you can get from dry land. Now one explorer is trying to reach Earth's "last pole"—but time is running out.

This is the real end of the Earth

The Earth's northernmost pole of inaccessibility, the dead center of the Arctic Ocean, has long been of interest to adventurers. Why? Because it's there. The geographic North Pole is 450 miles north of Greenland, but the Arctic pole of inaccessibility is even more remote—almost 200 miles farther out on the ice. It's the ultimate challenge for a polar explorer. British researcher Jim McNeill has called this spot the "unconquered Everest" of the Arctic.

Finding the middle of an Arctic circle

The easiest way to think about a pole of inaccessibility is in terms of radii; it's a point that's precisely equidistant from three faraway coastlines. The Arctic pole, for example, is exactly 626 miles from three different islands: Ellesmere Island at the northern tip of Canada, Komsomolets Island in Russia's Severanaya Zemlya archipelago, and Henrietta Island in the East Siberian Sea. In other words, if you were to draw the biggest circle possible that the Arctic Ocean can contain, this "pole" is the point at its dead center.

Bad math has kept the "other North Pole" completely deserted

Getting to a point six hundred miles out on the polar ice requires weeks of hiking or dogsledding. British explorer Wally Herbert thought he'd reached it in 1968 on his way to the North Pole. But in 2013, a Colorado researcher named Ted Scambos used satellite data to confirm that Herbert's calculations had been wrong, as the Arctic coastline was so imprecisely mapped back then. The real pole of inaccessibility is 133 miles away from where Herbert planted his flag—and no one's ever been there.

Wanted: 28 friends with $25,000 each and no fear of polar bears

Jim McNeill is determined to be the first to reach the dead center of the Arctic, which he calls "the last significant place on Earth as yet unreached by mankind." His last two expeditions have come up short; in 2003, he was sidelined by flesh-eating bacteria on his ankle, and in 2006 he fell through thinning ice and had to turn back on day 17. But McNeill is determined to return next winter, and has started a project called Ice Warrior to recruit and train twenty-eight volunteers to come with him. He suspects this might be humanity's last chance at reaching this "Last Pole." Global warming means a day is coming when there won't be enough sea ice to make the journey possible—except by boat.